The Different Perspectives and

Views on the Self

 PRE-SOCRATICS
 Greek thinkers who preceded Socrates or are existing around his time

 Preoccupied themselves with “arche” that explains the multiplicity in the world

 Central question/tenet: What is the ultimate, unchanging and constant matter that
constitutes reality? / What the world is really made up of?

 Search for “URSTOFF” – Primeval element/substance

 Find answers or explanation about the nature of change, permanence despite

change, and unity amidst diversity
 PRE-SOCRATICS
1. THALES
 Everything came out of water
 the nature and behavior of things must be understood in terms of property of
water
 Why water? Because one (1) we came from sperm and (2) human anatomy

2. ANAXIMENES
- The universe originated from air
 Air through condensation and rarefaction
 Why air? Because people live through air
 PRE-SOCRATICS
3. HERACLITUS
 The universe originated from fire
 “Everything is flux”
 Why fire? Because it is the same with change. Fire can change things from
one form to another

4. PYTHAGORAS
 Reality can be found in numbers
 Musical scales, tones can be reduced by numbers
 Therefore, all other things can be modelled after numbers
 SOCRATES

 Concerned with the “SELF”

 First philosopher who is engaged in the systematic questioning about the
self
 Concerned with “WHO AM I?”
 Objective: to enable the people to reach truth and wisdom
 SOCRATES
 Search for “ESSE” – means ESSENCE OR NATURE

 In order to know the reality, we have to perform the UNIVERSAL

DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS – listing all the properties of a thing
BUT, this is not enough we should have the genus or the
DIFFERENTIA – Identifying the difference of a thing from all other
things = ESSENCE
 SOCRATES

 Every man is composed of body and soul

 The soul is superior than the body
 The body is composed of the imperfect and impermanent
 The soul is perfect and permanent
 PLATO

 Socrates’s student who supported his mater’s idea that a person is

DUALISTIC

 A person is composed of body and soul

 The soul is superior than the body

 PLATO
 THREE COMPONENTS OF THE SOUL
1. THE RATIONAL SOUL – forged by reason and intellect; what governs the
affairs of human

2. THE SPIRITED SOUL – in charge with the person’s emotions

3. THE APPETITIVE SOUL – in charge of the desires

 JUSTICE can be attained if the three parts of the soul are working
harmoniously with one another
 PLATO
 Known for his THEORY OF FORMS
 Reality is not found in the world of things but in the world of forms
 The world we live in is an imitation of the real world (because we use
senses)
 Real world is the world of ideas
 Only if we use reason or ideas, that’s the time we’ll be enlightened to see
the nature of reality
 ARISTOTLE
 Father of Metaphysics
 What structures reality is these 4 causes

 FOUR CAUSES
1. MATERIAL – material composition
2. EFFICIENT – who made that thing A thing came into
3. FORMAL – idea of that thing being because of these
4. FINAL – (telos) purpose
four causes
 AUGUSTINE
 Augustine’s view of human person reflects the entire spirit of medieval
period
 Following Plato and infusing it with the new Doctrine of Christianity,
 MAN is of a bifurcated nature:
(1) an aspect of man dwells in the world and is imperfect
(2) man continuously yearns to be with the divine aiming for
immortality
 AUGUSTINE

 The body is bound to die and the soul is deemed to live eternally in
communion with God
 Because the body can only succeed or thrive in the imperfect, physical
reality
 The soul can live after death in the eternal realm with the Lord
 Goal of man is to live his life in virtuously
 THOMAS AQUINAS

 Most well known thirteenth century scholar and determined medieval

philosophy rooted in the Christian view
 Man is composed of TWO PARTS:
1. MATTER – “hyle” in Greek
- refers to all the common stuff in the universe
- e.g. man’s body
2. FORM – “morphe” in Greek
- refers to the essence of a substance or a thing
 RENE DESCARTES
 Father of Modern Philosophy
 Conceived of human having BODY AND MIND
 In his famous writing “The Meditations of First Philosophy”, he claims that
there is so much that we should DOUBT.
 If we think of something that is not infallible, they may turn out to be false
 If something is so clear already and not even to be doubted, that’s the only
time we believe a proposition eg. Sun, humans are mortal
 RENE DESCARTES

 Self? For him, the thing that cannot be doubted is the self
 Even if one doubts oneself, that there is a doubting self, that proves that you
cannot be doubted because you are thinking that you may not be existing
which proves that you exist
 If you think therefore you are.
 Famous of his line “COGITO ERGO SUM” which means I THINK
THEREFORE I AM
 RENE DESCARTES

 SELF is a combination of two entities: the

1. COGITO = MIND, the thing that thinks, and the
2. body– extension of the mind
For Descartes, the body is nothing else but a machine that is attached to the
mind

“But what then am I? A thinking thing. It has been said. But what is a thinking
thing? It is a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that
imagines also, and perceives”
 DAVID HUME
 Scottish philosopher
 An empiricist
 Knowledge comes from senses and experiences
 Men can only achieve knowledge through experiencing
 Eg. One person and another
 Self? A bundle of impressions.
 What are impressions? For David Hume, when we try to examine
experiences: 2 CATEGORIES
1. Impressions – basic objects of our experiences; they form the
core of thoughts. Eg. ice they are the product of our experiences.
2. Ideas - Eg. When you imagine the feeling of being in love for the
first time idea yun
 Self “a bundle or collection of different perceptions which succeed
each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are perpetual flux and
movement”
 IMMANUEL KANT
 Self as a combination of impressions was problematic for Kant.
 Yes, he recognizes the accuracy that everything starts with perception and
impression
 However, Kant thinks that there should be an organizing principle that
regulates the relationship of these impressions and this is the mind
 With the different apparatuses of the mind is the self. So without the self one
cannot organize the different impressions
 GILBERT RYLE
 What truly matters is the behavior that a person manifests in his day to
day life
 Eg. Going to the university, go to different places but still cannot find
the university = self is not a singular entity but a name that people refers
to all the behaviors that people make
 Merleau-Ponty
 Differentiating the mind and body is invalid

 That the mind and body are intertwined and they cannot be
separated from each other

 There is no experience that is not embodied

 The body is the opening toward his existence in the world